I have found the "Tips for UAS photo's" thread extremely informative as I have recently started doing some research on UAS's. We do a lot of land development work and we routinely contract with aerial mapping companies to fly our projects. We have several projects coming up this year and have been considering purchasing a UAS to map these projects ourselves. What I am hoping to find is a UAS with LiDAR that we can use to collect topographic mapping for 10-200 acre sites of undeveloped property. Some of our projects are wooded which is why LiDAR is important. It appears LiDAR is available for UAS's but honestly, my head is kind of spinning from my initial research on types of drones, cameras, sensors, etc. Is there any specific links that anybody found helpful in wrapping their head around what is available on the market today. Also, does anyone know of any dealers in the Maryland area that offer training/Demo's/support? Thanks in advance for any information.
MD Surveyor, post: 409975, member: 10081 wrote: I have found the "Tips for UAS photo's" thread extremely informative as I have recently started doing some research on UAS's. We do a lot of land development work and we routinely contract with aerial mapping companies to fly our projects. We have several projects coming up this year and have been considering purchasing a UAS to map these projects ourselves. What I am hoping to find is a UAS with LiDAR that we can use to collect topographic mapping for 10-200 acre sites of undeveloped property. Some of our projects are wooded which is why LiDAR is important. It appears LiDAR is available for UAS's but honestly, my head is kind of spinning from my initial research on types of drones, cameras, sensors, etc. Is there any specific links that anybody found helpful in wrapping their head around what is available on the market today. Also, does anyone know of any dealers in the Maryland area that offer training/Demo's/support? Thanks in advance for any information.
I was at NYSAPLS conference today talking with Maser Consulting a presenter. Their drone (a large rotary copter) with multiple (5) return lidar cost them $350,000.
leegreen, post: 410054, member: 2332 wrote: Their drone (a large rotary copter) with multiple (5) return lidar cost them $350,000.
It's been reported that the federal government is spending millions retraining coal miners to become drone operators. Seems like there will be quite a few operators fairly soon.
leegreen, post: 410054, member: 2332 wrote: I was at NYSAPLS conference today talking with Maser Consulting a presenter. Their drone (a large rotary copter) with multiple (5) return lidar cost them $350,000.
Is that typical? I got the impression that there were LiDAR sensors available that were much cheaper than that. I haven't found a hard price on anything yet, but I go the impression from a couple of articles I read that LiDAR could be added for a few thousand dollars, not hundreds of thousands.
You get what you pay for. Probably a reasonable LiDAR setup would be in the $35K-$70K range. Of course, it needs to have an IMU. Being that drone flight heights are much lower than manned fixed wing LiDAR flights, the IMU does not need to be as accurate. But a couple of thousand? Not for a while. There is a lot of development going on for autonomous cars, which need lidar. Price will probably come down as new technologies are discovered.
John Hamilton, post: 410117, member: 640 wrote: You get what you pay for. Probably a reasonable LiDAR setup would be in the $35K-$70K range. Of course, it needs to have an IMU. Being that drone flight heights are much lower than manned fixed wing LiDAR flights, the IMU does not need to be as accurate. But a couple of thousand? Not for a while. There is a lot of development going on for autonomous cars, which need lidar. Price will probably come down as new technologies are discovered.
Thanks John. That rules LiDAR out.
FWIW - I had 80 acres flow last year in PG county, half of it developed and half wooded stream bottom. A large aerial mapping firm has flow the wooded portion a few years earlier leaf off and had the data in the can. They re-flew the site and delivered 1' contours, certified to meet national map accuracy standards, for $7,000. For me (YMMV) I'd rather make my money somewhere else and let the guys who do this stuff day in and day out have the work (and the liability).
James Fleming, post: 410124, member: 136 wrote: FWIW - I had 80 acres flow last year in PG county, half of it developed and half wooded stream bottom. A large aerial mapping firm has flow the wooded portion a few years earlier leaf off and had the data in the can. They re-flew the site and delivered 1' contours, certified to meet national map accuracy standards, for $7,000. For me (YMMV) I'd rather make my money somewhere else and let the guys who do this stuff day in and day out have the work (and the liability).
This is typical of our experience also. We have several aerial companies we work with on a regular basis. I actually just sent an RFP out last week for a 144 acre wooded property that I needed mapped at 100 scale with 2' contours and one company came back with a price of $3,300. The other was around $6,000. This is something we are considering mostly to have another tool in our toolbox, possibly expand our market to help keep our survey crew busy, and avoid the occasional delays of waiting on the aerial companies. (Plus I think it's really cool) We definitely haven't decided to make the leap yet, I am just trying to figure out what is actually out there, and like I said above my head is spinning with all of the information I have found online. I would love to be able to find someone that could give me demo and help me figure out positives and negatives of various technologies. I assume there are manufacturers/dealers that would be willing to do that.
MD Surveyor, post: 409975, member: 10081 wrote: Is there any specific links that anybody found helpful in wrapping their head around what is available on the market today.
It's kind of basic but informative anyway. 😎
MD Surveyor, post: 410116, member: 10081 wrote: Is that typical? I got the impression that there were LiDAR sensors available that were much cheaper than that. I haven't found a hard price on anything yet, but I go the impression from a couple of articles I read that LiDAR could be added for a few thousand dollars, not hundreds of thousands.
Similar to GPS, there are many grades of Lidar. As others have noted you get what you pay for. The low end Lidar has a single return, shorter distance, with less desinty. Multiple pulse returns aid with dense vegitation. The lowest returns are used for ground classification.
The Phantom 4 Pro UAS system looks like a good way to introduce a company into small scale photogrammetry. It looks like it would be handy for mapping sites with lots of improvements out in the open. Are the FAA rules really restrictive? I had a friend who tried to get someone to fly a Home Depot site for a survey. He said something about not being able to fly over cars or people, so it would be illegal to do. Is that true? Also, is there a market out there for small scale orthophoto creation? Who do you sell it to?
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 410229, member: 6939 wrote: The Phantom 4 Pro UAS system looks like a good way to introduce a company into small scale photogrammetry. It looks like it would be handy for mapping sites with lots of improvements out in the open. Are the FAA rules really restrictive? I had a friend who tried to get someone to fly a Home Depot site for a survey. He said something about not being able to fly over cars or people, so it would be illegal to do. Is that true? Also, is there a market out there for small scale orthophoto creation? Who do you sell it to?
With a sUAV Article 107 there is no problem flying a home depot. PIC (pilot in charge) needs permissions from land owners, a safety plan and a flight plan and follow all rules. I'd suggest flying early morning before the store opens. Less people, less parked cars, less point cloud noise. Sounds like he did not have Article 107.
leegreen, post: 410231, member: 2332 wrote: With a sUAV Article 107 there is no problem flying a home depot. PIC (pilot in charge) needs permissions from land owners, a safety plan and a flight plan and follow all rules. I'd suggest flying early morning before the store opens. Less people, less parked cars, less point cloud noise. Sounds like he did not have Article 107.
With photogrammetry, aren't you usually limited to flying between 10am and 2pm?
Disclaimer: I am employed by an aerial mapping company who has professional pilots, manned aircraft and digital cameras and airborne LiDAR sensors as our business model.
Our new strategic programs manager has drone experience at previous companies, she has done some research and presented it to professional groups on the matter of mapping with drones, her opinion (at current costs and technology) is that over 20 acres, hire a mapping firm, drones have lots of uses, for the application the OP asked about, those projects are really out of the scope of effective drone usage. She also worked with a high end drone with LiDAR at a previous company, $500,000 investment in their setup.
While cool and there are a lot of applications for drones, large mapping areas (defined by her as over 20 acres) aren't one of them. I think drones are a bit oversold right now. I think there will be lots of uses both now and the future, but replacing conventional aerial mapping probably isn't ready for prime time due to all the restrictions currently on the 107 rules
SHG
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 410234, member: 6939 wrote: With photogrammetry, aren't you usually limited to flying between 10am and 2pm?
Bow Tie,
Yes, with airborne photography that is true, to reduce shadow. With lidar, shadow is not a problem.
This time of year (winter) the sun's angle is still low between those hours. So there will be shadow. The advantage of drone aerialimagery is a partly cloudy day can be good time to fly, and at times better than a sunny day at noon. We sure get enough of these in the Northeast winters. Drones fly well below the clouds. With light cloud cover and the correct camera settings a shadow free ortho can be obtained.
Todays drones may be considered as cameras that can fly. So like a photographer, you can wait for the correct conditions.
MD Surveyor, post: 409975, member: 10081 wrote: I have found the "Tips for UAS photo's" thread extremely informative as I have recently started doing some research on UAS's. We do a lot of land development work and we routinely contract with aerial mapping companies to fly our projects. We have several projects coming up this year and have been considering purchasing a UAS to map these projects ourselves. What I am hoping to find is a UAS with LiDAR that we can use to collect topographic mapping for 10-200 acre sites of undeveloped property. Some of our projects are wooded which is why LiDAR is important. It appears LiDAR is available for UAS's but honestly, my head is kind of spinning from my initial research on types of drones, cameras, sensors, etc. Is there any specific links that anybody found helpful in wrapping their head around what is available on the market today. Also, does anyone know of any dealers in the Maryland area that offer training/Demo's/support? Thanks in advance for any information.
The biggest issue I see is the DC no fly zone which cuases the constant need for waivers in Central MD.
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